Moving Towards Transition

Sometimes Christmas can get the best of a person...as it did me this year.  Prior to our wedding, which was October 19, things were crazy busy.  I was overwhelmed.  People kept asking how they could help or what tasks they could do, but it wasn't the amount of things it was a general feeling of disorganization and the sense that there was no way to organize it. 

The absolute worst day for me was the day before our wedding.  Our house was an absolute disaster.  We had one of Mike's coworkers staying at our house the night of the wedding to take care of Kirby.  Mike's friends were going to be getting ready at our house prior to the wedding.  One of Mike's good friends was going to be staying at our house the week after the wedding while we were on our honeymoon.  I was mortified that these people were going to see my house.  I can't even explain the mortification of it.  It is something that I actually have to repress deep down inside of me and totally forget because the pain of remembering how dirty our house was and how many people saw it like that might kill me.  At the time, though, there was no time for me to clean it.  I was working full-time, nights were taken up with wedding appointments; it was a disaster. 

Before the wedding I kept thinking that once we were back from San Francisco, everything would calm down and I could just spend my nights and weekends nesting away.  This just didn't happen.  My days at work were spent in frantic disarray.  Work was busy.  I came in early, left late and didn't take lunch breaks.  Then I went on a girls' weekend trip.  Mid-November, Mike was gone for a week long training in Alabama and I decided to deep clean the house.  Serenity now.  Right?  Wrong.

When Mike got back I realized that Christmas was a mere month away.  Our thank you cards were not finished, I hadn't even considered Christmas gifts for anyone, only a few wedding gifts were put away, work was still busy...  This started a month long frenzy of the holidays.  I worked long hours at finishing the thank you cards.  Almost immediately afterwards I started working on our Christmas cards.  I spent two days ordering multiple gifts online only to have some orders not go through or others be back ordered.  We put up our holiday decorations, but still had stacks of boxes of wedding presents that needed to be put away. 

What I'm trying to get at is that my soul is exhausted.  The last few months have been the best as I've been enjoying newlywed bliss, but all of that fun and excitement has left me tired and aching for calm.  I've spent the beginning of this month in various states of relaxation and it's been nice.  Slowly I've been getting my motivation back and I'm feeling better about tackling life.  Yay! 

Me No Spell Good

I was at an awards banquet recently and this cracked me up.  Obviously this wasn't a Spelling Bee.

Kali River Rapids

 I'm going to do something kind of unethical today.  I'm going to review a Disney ride that I've never been on before.  How do you feel about that?  I feel fine.

Kali River Rapids is a water ride at Animal Kingdom.  I just don't feel the water rides, something about them doesn't appeal to me.  Plus, I've seen the people coming off of Kali River Rapids and they are SOAKED.  Dripping wet and having to try to dry off their clothes with the hand dryers in the rest room.  So, even on the hottest days I've passed.  Although, in 90 degree Florida weather, it's awfully tempting and would probably feel refreshing.

I've always been curious what it's like inside there.  This guy looks like he's having fun:

The ladies in the blue, however, seem miserable.  Where are your ponchos girls?  Maybe I'd try this one out if I was wearing a dorky poncho.  MAYBE.



I guess this isn't so much of a review as a warning.  Do not go on this ride if you don't like having wet underwear.  That is all. 

Do You See What I See?

Weirdest Christmas decoration EVER.  What the eff is going on here?  How does this stuff pass through quality control?  Because this decoration was actually found at a very upscale store where snowman fellatio does not fly.

I would be great at quality control because I can spot innuendo a mile away.  You can't tell me that the creator of this piece didn't know what they were doing.  They always know.  Besides, what is the alternative here?  That someone created a sculpture of a snowman making another snowman?

Quote of the Day

Here's one of my favorites from court recently...

Q: What do you think of your wife's diagnosis?
A: You know, she's 60, so she's kind of done anyways.
Q: But do you know what her diagnosis is?
A: She's just too old.
Q: The doctors said she has dementia, does she?
A: Well, she don't cook me dinner no more.

There you have it, when a woman stops cooking her husband dinner, it must mean she has dementia.

Wedding Paper Love

When I started planning things for the wedding, I knew that I wanted to do some of the paper products on my own.  I got ideas from blogs (I swear I have looked at every wedding ever posted on Style Me Pretty) and tried to come up with the templates for things early on.  The really difficult thing about the paper products is getting the right color of paper.  Sometimes I would find an awesome color, but it would be way too expensive.  Other times, I would find a color online that looked perfect and then the sample piece would be way too dark or way too bright.  It was frustrating.  I finally settled on the above blue.  It wasn't exactly the shade I wanted, but it was close and had a very pretty shimmer to it. 

Making programs is a lot more complicated that I thought it would be.  First, if you want to do a book style, you have to print the pages out of order and on both sides of a piece of paper so that when it folds, all of the pages are in the proper order.  This turned out to be a lot tougher than I thought.  I guess it wasn't hard to figure out, just time consuming.  Secondly, the text was maddening.  I obsessed and obsessed about the punctuation and grammar.  Like, obsessed to the point where I couldn't even see obvious mistakes anymore.  It was bad.  I kept having visions of people in the church pews snickering about my bad grammar.  It was awful.  At the end of the day, I had to let it go. 

The programs were very simple.  There was just a list of the people in the wedding, the order of the ceremony and thank yous.  I also included my favorite love quote.  Have you read Rilke's essay On Love?  You should.  It's divine.

We also opted for the guest libs instead of doing a formal guest book.  I actually made the template on the computer and again obsessed and obsessed about the grammar.  This one I know there were some mistakes and people definitely pointed them out to us.  Thanks people!  I need a refresher on what a proper adverb is.  Creating a template for these was actually really simple.  It was the cutting of them that was tricky.

I knew that I needed to jazz them up so that it wasn't just a boring piece of ivory card stock.  I got a paper punch with a polka dot pattern from the lovely Martha Stewart and thought it would be smooth sailing.  It was not.  After punching through a hundred or more pieces of card stock, the paper punch was not as sharp and not punching holes quite as cleanly.  It was a lot of work and my elbows were aching afterwards.  I think I gave myself tennis elbow.  After the punches, we decided to put a thin piece of ribbon through the top holes to give it a bit more color. 

A side note about the guest libs.  I love the idea, but I think my execution was off.  A few people suggested putting them at every place setting and I went against that thinking more people would complete them if they were in the cocktail room.  I was wrong.  They definitely should go at every place setting.  Live and learn...always listen to your wedding planner. (sorry Steph!)  We did get about 70 back and they were funny...although some of them were extremely naughty. 

My last big paper project was the table numbers.  This was one of those things that my mom and Mike were both against.  I am stubborn and forged ahead.  This project took a TON of time.  Each crystal was added to the number with my own two hands.  First I printed out the word "Table" on a bunch of sheets of card stock.  Then I took a pencil and drew in the number.  I then filled in the pencil marking with the crystals.  I would say each one took at least an hour of time.  However, they looked so cool.  The little crystals caught the candle light and kind of glowed all pretty.  It was just the look that I wanted.  Now I need to think of a way to re-purpose the numbers.   

Overall, I definitely agree with people that you should not take on too many DIY projects for a wedding.  It just gets to be a lot of time and I'm not convinced that you can always do it on the cheap...unless you want it to look cheap.  These few projects were just enough (and maybe a little bit too much) for us.

I also have to say that I had a LOT of help.  My mom put in a lot of time crafting with me as did Mike and his mother.  I am lucky because my mom is really good at getting things precise, where I am not quite as good at that skill.  Mike was kind of a special helper in that I know he doesn't really get crafting, but he knew it was important to me and so not only helped me, but also worked really hard to make sure it all looked nice.

Winter Pucker

I am really hating dry, winter skin right now.  My legs, arms, nails, fingers, lips and hair feels brittle and rough.  I've mostly been noticing it in my lips and nail beds.  I have a dream product that I swear by to alleviate dry skin.  Allow me to introduce Smith's Rosebud Salve.  Does anyone use this gem?

A little back story on dry lips.  When I was a kid, I hated using chap stick and so my lips would become horribly dry and cracked.  My mom would often wait until I had fallen asleep and then carefully rub Vaseline or Carmex on my lips.  I would wake up so upset because I hated the smell and the feeling of Vaseline/Carmex.  I'm not sure why I hated smooth lips. 

When I got into high school, I would get really embarrassed when my lips would be so dry and cracked, so I started carrying around Lip Smackers wherever I went.  Seriously, I thought Lip Smackers were chap stick.  My favorite flavor was pink lemonade.  Once I realized that Lip Smackers did very little to heal chapped lips, I started using the Bath and Body Works chap stick.  It was probably only marginally better, but it felt good and smelled even better.

I'm not sure when, but at some point I read an article about Anne Hathaway's favorite beauty products and she mentioned Smith's Rosebud Salve for amazingly smooth lips.  I decided to try it out.  My life changed.

I always carry at least two tins of the salve on my person at ALL TIMES.  Why two, you ask?  Well, there have been times when one of the tins has been taken out at work and left there or in the opposite taken out at home and left there and if I keep at least two in my bag, then I'm always guaranteed to have one when I'm out and about. 

This stuff is the best.  If my lips are feeling the slightest bit chapped, I put a little of this on and within minutes everything is smooth and hydrated for hours.  During the driest parts of the year, I re-apply maybe once every few hours.  It always leaves my lips feeling soft and well-cared for.  It also smells faintly flowery and gives a little pinkish tint to your lips.  Nothing overpowering, just a little subtle something.

As if that wasn't enough, the salve can be applied to any area of your body affected by dry skin.  I've found that it works especially well on dry cuticle beds, hang nails and paper cuts.  When my nails are at their best, it is because I have been applying this salve to my nail beds once or twice a day.  Sometimes, if I'm in a dry-hand jam (does that sound dirty to anyone?), and don't have any lotion (okay, yes, it sounds dirty), I apply this to the affected area and it works okay.  Not as good as lotion, though.  The tin also says that it works for diaper rash.

One major downside is that if you are outside in the heat, the salve will melt in the tins and become a gooey mess.  This is why I also love the little tube for the summer.  No muss, no fuss.  Although, I don't like the quality of the salve in the tube as much as in the tins.  In the tube, you tend to get too much on your lips at one time.

Have I sold you on my favorite winter savior?